![]() ![]() In the modern world, even in the midst of strangers or even when not being observed by others at all, humans nevertheless have some tendency toward altruism (and antipathy toward cheaters) because the proximate mechanism operates as if the ancient, small-group conditions still held. In this setting, altruistic acts would either ( a) benefit kin, and so evolve due to kin selection, or else ( b) benefit the altruist by enhancing in some way her chances for reciprocity, which is especially critical in small groups in which reputational assessment among familiar interactants is constant. The basic idea is that human altruistic tendencies evolved at a time when humans lived in small groups, comprised mostly of kin. ![]() The first theory comes from evolutionary psychology and is often called the Big Mistake Hypothesis (e.g., Burnham and Johnson 2005). In this modern context, there are two main theories of the evolution of human cooperation, both of which focus on the most difficult theoretical problem from the point of view of evolutionary theory: altruism. ![]() As is well known since Darwin, this creates challenges for evolutionary explanation, since in modern evolutionary theory, cooperative behavior must always be grounded in the individual and inclusive fitness of the cooperator. Human cognition and sociality thus became ever more collaborative and altruistic as human individuals became ever more interdependent.Īs compared with other primates, human beings are inordinately cooperative, especially with nonrelatives. As part of this new group-mindedness, they created cultural conventions, norms, and institutions (all characterized by collective intentionality), with knowledge of a specific set of these marking individuals as members of a particular cultural group. In a second step, these new collaborative skills and motivations were scaled up to group life in general, as modern humans faced competition from other groups. In this context, they evolved new skills and motivations for collaboration not possessed by other great apes (joint intentionality), and they helped their potential partners (and avoided cheaters). In a first step, humans became obligate collaborative foragers such that individuals were interdependent with one another and so had a direct interest in the well-being of their partners. In contrast, we propose that humans’ species-unique forms of cooperation-as well as their species-unique forms of cognition, communication, and social life-all derive from mutualistic collaboration (with social selection against cheaters). Modern theories of the evolution of human cooperation focus mainly on altruism. ![]()
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